


Roots and Families

by SophiexHorayne



Category: Derry Girls (TV)
Genre: Gen, a drabble, i'd die for all of them, it was so beautiful I had to write it idk, this is basically the end of 2x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 02:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiexHorayne/pseuds/SophiexHorayne
Summary: "Looking out over these historic walls I see a peaceful city, a safe city, a hopeful city, full of young people that should have a peaceful, and prosperous future, here where their roots and families are."Or the one where James realises who his family really is.





	Roots and Families

He’s excited when she asks him, or, tells him, rather. That she wants him. In England. That he’s going home. It’s _easy_ to say yes. For the very first few weeks in Derry all he had thought about was going home. He knew the moment that he was asked, he’d go back in a second. And nothing should have changed that.

Until he’s standing in front of the girls, about to tell them.

 

They all stare at him expectantly. Impatient and waiting for him to stand beside them to hold their spot.

“I’m leaving.” The words don’t seem to register to any of them, so he adds, “I’m going back to London with my mum.”

Their faces have all fallen. He looks at each of them, all holding the same expression.

“When?” Michelle asks.

“Now.” James’ heart has suddenly fallen. Mirroring the girls’ faces. He feels guilty. He shouldn’t have jumped this on them. Not right now. They were so excited. “Now. I have to go now, the Taxi’s booked. I’m sorry, it was all decided so quickly.”

He is sorry. So sorry. This is harder than he ever imagined it could have been.

“I don’t understand.” Orla says, slowly, blinking at him. Confused. Hurt.

“He’s not serious.” Michelle says.

“I am.” James insists.

Clare splutters out her words, “You can’t- you can’t leave, James.”

“Look, this was always gonna happen.” James tells them. “This was never my real life, it was like, something that got in the way of it.” It was like some weird and wild dream.

“What are you talking about, you love it here.” Erin protests. The girls all look satisfied with her point.

“I’m not sure I do.” James replies. He had told himself he could never have liked this place. “I think I’ve just developed Stockholm syndrome.”

“Please!” Michelle says, “You’ve never been to Switzerland.”

He can’t tell if she’s joking.

“Listen...” James starts. “I’ll never forget this place, but I have to go home now. It’s time.” He pauses and looks at them all once more, their forlorn faces staring back at him, “Goodbye girls.”

Turning around is harder than he thought. He doesn’t want to push his way through the crowds, but he does. _His mum wants him_. And he’s missed her. He really has.

“Oi, _wank features.”_

Michelle.

He turns around. “Michelle, please.” _Please_ don’t make this hard. _Please_ just let me go.

“'Goodbye girls?' Wise the fuck up.”

“What do you want me to say?” He asks.

She ignores the question. “She’ll let you down again, you do realise that?”

“She asked to be her business partner, actually, Michelle, so…” She wants him. His mother wants him. His mother loves him. Is that so hard for Michelle to understand?

“Now it makes sense.” Michelle retorts, nodding as thought in realisation, “She needs you to help flog her fucking stickers.”

“Self-adhesive labels.” James corrects, frustrated.

“Free labour, that’s what she’s after.” Michelle tells him. “You know she only thinks about herself, James.”

 _She’s wrong_. She has to be.

He watches a group of boys pass them, looks at the floor.

“And when it doesn’t work out? Then what?” Michelle says.

“It will work out!” James retorts. “Anyway, it’s not like I belong here. I never did.”

He never will belong. The looks he gets for his accent. The fact the school never put in boys’ toilets. The disgusting takeaways. The pokey little _guest_ room at Michelle’s. He doesn’t belong.

He doesn’t.

“That’s not true.” Michelle replies, “You’re a Derry girl now, James.”

 _That’s_ funny. They were all too excited to kick him out the moment Mae had showed up. He’s not a Derry Girl.

He’s not.

“Piss off.” He replies, turning to leave.

“I’m serious.” Michelle replies. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve got that stupid accent. Or that your bits are different to my bits. But it’s because, well, being a Derry Girl is a _fucking state of mind_.”

James swallows. He doesn’t need this. _God_ these girls make everything so hard.

“You’re one of us.” Michelle says. She’s never been this nice to him. Or nice to him at all. He doesn’t like it.

He sighs. He shouldn’t have to feel guilty. _They’re always horrible to you_. He reminds himself. “I have to do this.”

He’s going _home_. Shouldn’t they be happy for him?

“But I don’t want you to.” Michelle throws her arms up.

Since when did she _ever_ care about him sticking around?

“She’s my mum Michelle.” James replies.

Michelle looks defeated and hurt. She falls silent for a moment, then straightens and looks him in the eye, “Well, fuck off then.” The way she says it is surprisingly gentle.

He looks at her one last time. Then turns.

He walks away, ready to pause and turn around, expecting Michelle to call him back. Tell him to wait. Make him stay.

But he hears nothing.

See… she never really cared.

 

He reaches their- Michelle’s- house. The taxi’s already waiting. His mother stands outside, various bags which probably includes his own. He stands at the top of the road and looks up and then down it. The hill that killed his legs every time he walked it. The hill he cursed everyday.

“Are you getting in?” His mum asks with a smile, gesturing him from inside.

He looks at her and forces a weak grin, before taking one last glance back down the hill: The church in the distance, the fields and the little dots below that he knows to be the shops.

He gets in the taxi.

 

Telling himself it’s stupid to feel like crying, he leans his head against the window, stares out as more and more of Derry disappears behind him. He daren’t look back.

Maybe he will miss it a bit.

Maybe he will miss walking up that dumb fucking hill. Maybe he’ll miss the stupid school, and Sister Michael, and Jenny’s terrible songs in morning assemblies (okay missing that is debatable). He’ll miss the disgusting takeaways and the greasy chips and the corner shop that sells absolutely nothing useful. He’ll miss the church bells and the school bus and the terrible, terrible school trips.

The taxi drives passed the _You are now entering Free Derry_ sign and James struggles to hold back tears. It’s ridiculous really.

He won’t miss it. He won’t miss them.

He won’t miss Michelle and the way she took the piss out of him for everything, or the way she hogged the bathroom in the mornings. He won’t miss Erin and her temper tantrums or how she so easily gets into a rant. He won’t miss Orla and her unanswerable questions, and all her ridiculous comments that don’t make sense. And he won’t miss Clare and her obsession with rules and telling them all what they shouldn’t do.

He won’t miss Derry and he won’t miss the girls.

“You’ll be glad to get out of this dive, love.” His mother says, “I know I am.”

Suddenly he can’t even pretend.

Derry… Derry may not be the most prestigious, upper class, glamorous area in the world. But it isn’t a dive and… he isn’t glad to _get out of_ it. _Get out_ makes it feel like he was trapped. And maybe he was, for the first couple of days. But not anymore.

He’s going to miss the church and the stupid school and Sister Michael’s rules. He’ll miss the shops and that bloody hill up to Michelle’s- their- house.

He’ll miss Michelle, and her sarcasm and the way she gets them into trouble. He’ll miss the teasing, and the shoving. He’ll miss Erin, and her crazy ideas and her kind heart and the way relief and gratefulness shone in her eyes when he showed up to take her to prom. He’ll miss Orla. Her unique mind and her surprising wise-ness. And her affection and her honesty. And _god_ will he miss Clare Devlin. And her loyalty and her will to keep them all safe. And the fact she wanted to go to prom with _him_.

He’ll miss Derry. And _for fuck’s sake_ he’ll miss the girls so much.

So much.

Too much.

The little rainbow badge on his collar glints as sunlight bursts through the car window. The badge they all have. Because they’re a team. And best friends. And family.

Because they’re Derry Girls.

“Stop the car.” He blurts, almost surprising himself.

“What?” His mum asks.

The driver doesn’t stop.

“I said stop!” James repeats. “Or turn around.”

They’re only just out of Derry. Not that far away. In the rear wing mirror he can’t still see the _you are now entering Free Derry_ sign.

“There’s no where to stop.”

“There’s no one around, just let me out!” James protests.

The car pulls over and comes to a stop. James lets out a breath and undoes his seat belt.

“What are you doing?” His mother asks.

“Going home.” He tells his mum.

His mother looks at him in disbelief.

“We _are_ going home.”

“No.” James says. He reaches into the boot and pulls his suitcase over, onto the seat between he and his mum. “England is… England is a place where I had no one. Where you never had time for me. Where I had no friends. The boys all thought I was… gay… and the girls all thought I was weird… but here… in Derry, everyone _knows_ I’m weird but they don’t care. I have friends, mum, I have a life. People who want me to stay with them, not people who want to send me away.”

“Oh, love, I didn’t send you away… I did what was best I-“

“No.” James cuts her off. “Derry is my home. I’m a Derry girl, now, mum.”

He opens the car door and drags his suitcase out.

“I’m sorry.” He says.

His mother just stares, wordlessly, as her son slams the door.

James starts running back up the side of the road. It’s difficult, with the suitcase. But he keeps going. On the way he passes Erin and Orla’s and dumps the suitcase in their front garden. No one will likely be around to steal it anyway, they’re all watching the president.

He keeps running, through the town and the streets. Passed the church, up the road, and finally reaches the crowds. He stands above them all, scanning the front rows, squinting, trying to catch his breath at the same time.

“I’m a Derry Girl!” He yells, adrenaline still coursing through him. He knows they won’t even hear him.

Nonetheless he shouts it again, waves his arms around.

It’s Orla who turns around first. Not because she heard him, or saw him, probably. Perhaps she was just _hoping_ to find him standing there. All at once her face brightens. She points his way as he shouts again;

“I’m a Derry Girl!”

Erin turns around then, and gradually the others do too. They seem happy.

He holds his arms out, “I’m a Derry Girl.”

Behind him a man grumbles, “You’re a fucking prick, that’s what you are.”

But he ignores it, looks back down as they break into a run through the crowd, them getting lost in the sea of people below. He runs to meet them. Stumbles down the cobbled pavement, a few people in the back of the crowds giving him odd looks.

Orla meets him first. Leaps into his arms with a force that means he has to take a couple steps back to save himself from falling. He holds her tightly. Erin and Michelle fall into him next, either side. Erin kisses his cheek. Clare wraps herself delightedly around them all.

It all feels so fast and so slow motion all at once.

Orla, with tears in her eyes and smiling lips, dropping slowly from his arms, latching onto his side.

Michelle, wrapping the hideous not-American flag around his shoulders, unable to hide her happiness, giving him a tight side hug.

Erin fixing the flag squeezing his shoulders, looking at him like… like she’s just come home.

Clare pressing into his side, ruffling his hair, the brightest, happiest smile on her face as Orla pulls her into a hug beside him.

He looks at all four of them. All their rainbow badges shining on their lapels or shirts. All of their eyes shimmering with tears, all of them, smiling and smiling.

 _Fucking hell,_ how did he think he could leave them?

Orla takes hold of his hand and clutches it tightly. Michelle wraps an arm around him like she wasn’t complaining about how stupid his accent was five times over that morning.

They all start walking, away from the crowds, like they don’t even remember what they’re walking away from ( _History, in the /making/)._

James looks at them all, one by one. He feels warm and happy and relieved and safe and…

Like he’s come home.

Like he’s looking at his family.


End file.
